Cricket: How many LOI's do we need?

For those of you who have seen so much of cricket and still don’t know this term LOI, LOI stands for limited over international. It’s been about roughly three years since the first twenty twenty game was played. Since the advent of 20-20 the main question in every cricket lovers mind is whether we need two separate LOI (20-20 and 50-50) or do we need to gradually finish off 50-50. The important point here is 20-20 is still in nascent stages and is yet to fully establish itself but its attraction has been huge. It’s never been common in Indian domestic cricket to attract such huge crowds. Of course the case in point here is that there are so many foreign star in display but still people get to see almost 40% foreign players in action. If India plays say a foreign country in Indian soil it of course attracts huge crowds where we have 50% foreign representation. But the important thing to keep in mind with IPL is the winner is always an Indian team irrespective of who performs.

Anyways coming back to the central point is do we see the end of 50-50 or is it going to coexist with 20-20. Lets do some comparison between the both.

20-20:

Pros: Time, Speed of the game, boundaries, close games, evening out the teams, unpredictability

Cons: Better team need not always win, no comeback chances, too fast, one person can change the game, fielding becomes irrelevant, bowlers getting demoralized

50-50:

Pros: History, comeback chances, Better team always wins, Team game, Fielding important, bowlers get more respect.

Cons: Time, speed is too slow between 15-40 overs, predictability of the game easily, very few many nail biters, fewer boundaries.

As you can see from the list, the main pro for 20-20 game has been its speed. It’s not normal for a cricket game whether test or 50-50 to have the spectator so closely gripped to your TV screens. Yes there have been many close 50 over games but if you look at it as percentage of games played, its very low. Moreover the 50 over game gets interesting only in the last 10 overs or in its initial stages which makes it watchable for say 20% of the time then what do you do with the rest o keep the spectator interested. Spectator likes to see action and 20-20 game brings loads of it and that keeps everyone interested. Also you get lot more close games in 20-20 unlike 50-50.

50-50 has its own advantages of its very long history (including its ancient 60-60 days) but the main advantage of 50-50 over 20-20 which any cricket lover who admires its game very elaborately would be its fairness. By fairness I don’t mean the discipline here but rather the necessity that the team that played better cricket needs to win and that is more or less tru here. You could always argue that a test cricket is more correct cricket than 50-50 but that is a different debate in itself. The main argument here is that in 50-50 if you need to win a game you need to do lots of things correct whereas in 20-20 you need to do say one great innings. You could always play a commanding knock in odi but unless you bowl well you need not win. Also the bowlers get so much more respect that a batsman cannot literally close his eyes and swing its bat and still are called a hero. Well in one line “50-50 is more real cricket than 20-20”.

But we already have another format called Test cricket which will always be the cricket in its purest form and the question is do we need one “middle pure” and one “completely impure cricket”. The thing is 20-20 could never become a fixture in international calendar like 50-50. The reason for it being it’s not possible to always get a fair result. But club 20-20 games would be the most popular form of the game. Looking at the initial interest, it is possible people might show more interest in these country leagues like IPL, Champions league than say a international 50-50 games. But its interest will probably rest with club matches and may be occasional international games (World Cups). The test and 50-50 could be the fixtures in any tour calendar. What will die is probably not the 50-50 game in itself but those meaningless 50-50 tournaments we used to have in Sharjah, Malaysia, Singapore etc and also possibly the champions trophy.